Hanoi-based bank chairman gives priority to hiring family members

In Vietnam, it is not unusual to see family members working in the same company. Recruitment through personal networks is a deep-rooted but unwritten tradition in the country, and people accept it but never talk about it.

Partly-private lender LienVietPostBank has recently come under the spotlight after saying it would give priority to hiring people with the same family name as the bank’s chairman, Duong Cong Minh.

The recruitment announcement was made public on the bank’s website to fill positions at branches in remote parts of the country.

LienVietPostBank Chairman Duong Cong Minh. Photo by Thanh Thanh Lan

Duong Cong Minh, who is currently acting chairman of LienVietPostBank and heads the Duong Family committee in Vietnam, has confirmed to VnExpress that he approved and signed the recruitment decision.

However, Minh added the bank is only giving priority to individuals living in poor and remote areas and only for the position of bank tellers.

“[We have set up] this exclusive recruitment to hire 62 young people, giving priority to those living in poor rural areas so they have the chance to earn a wage as a bank teller. The job position doesn’t require much more than a high-school certificate. However, for those given priority, they just need to have been trained at a vocational school,” said Duong.

In Vietnam, people who are not academically qualified to attend high school go to vocational training schools.

The bank executive stressed that the recruitment process for other job positions at the bank follows the usual rules and said that in the future, LienVietPostBank will not make the same exception.

LienVietPostBank has received the central bank’s approval to open a series of new branches and transaction offices in remote provinces including Phu Yen in the south and the northern border province of Lai Chau.

LienViet is the first partly private bank in Vietnam which utilizes the nationwide post office system to provide banking services like money transfers and savings.

Previously, the country’s largest lender by assets Agribank also caught the public’s attention after it publicly announced that it gave its senior employees’ immediate family members a 30 percent advantage on their recruitment exam scores.

Executives of the state-owned bank later held an urgent meeting and revoked the decision.